Best jacket around BUT there IS a flaw!

By jtcash Ranked #19 - Men's Technical Shells October 24, 2009

I bought a Medium. My dimensions are 5'8", 170lb, 40" chest.

All the positive reviews for the Arc'teryx Alpha SV are completely true. From my experience, what distinguishes this from other hard shells is the face fabric and also the fit. However, no one so far has mentioned that there is also a flaw in the zipper design.

The face fabric is superb. Since Arc'teryx designs and manufactures their own face fabrics, the durability and uniqueness of their face fabric is second to none. When it comes to face fabrics, they are the king of hard shells...bar none. The weaving is so tight and the denier of the threads make the fabric so burly. Due to the density of the threads, it almost looks like the fabric is not woven, but is like a laminate floor. I haven't seen another jacket out there with a face fabric that is so cool and unique.

The fit and articulation of this jacket makes it feel like you've got no shell on at all. There is freedom of movement in ALL directions, whereas other jackets out there restrict you and can feel the fabric trying to move with you. The length of this jacket for me was great. It's also very roomy but does not at all appear to be baggy.

With all the positive things said, there is a negative point of this jacket. I've already mentioned this before in a previous post/question. The chin guard material (on the left collar) is puffy. As such, that puffy material actually can overlap the main zipper and cause the zipper to get stuck. This is REALLY annoying particularly when you don't have two hands to fix the problem. Now this doesn't happen ALL the time, but quite frequently if you zip it up at a certain angle.Someone else on Moosejaw also mentioned this problem (http://www.moosejaw.com/outdoors/products/ArcteryxAlphaSVJacketFall2009-Mens.html)

EDIT: It turns out that this is a known issue from the manufacturer. They had production issues with the old Titanium color. It seems that BC's batch of Titaniums are from this production run.

I don't know if this was just the batch of jackets that BC carries or if it is a design issue. I got 2 other jackets from BC and they exhibited the same problem. I went to my local store and NONE of their jackets had that issue. The material was not as puffy as BC's jackets.

In any case, I will take off 1 star from this jacket because this is such a fundamental and functional problem. Whether or not this is Arc'teryx or BC's problem, I'm just warning you about this.

Other than this, this is definitely the best jackets for winter use compared to other ones I have reviews. (You can check out my postings).

If you like this review, click on the thumbs up.

View Details: Arc'teryx Alpha SV Jacket - Men's

Helpful Votes: 2 Yes | 0 No